Hospitals
Some friends & I had gotten onto the topic of hospitals, and hospitalization... and it is an intriguing topic:
I'm reminded that the Sci-fi channel is rerunning Stephen King's horror story of the crazed scary hospital:
Kingdom Hospital is on a marathon tonight...if you care (he is too gross for me)
but all hospitals can be a little scary. Or at least weird and alien.
I had never really been around hospitals much until I worked all Summer in one when I was in Jr. High School I signed on to be a Candy Stripper (one of those helpful little girls in the pink & white stripped pinafores...)
I learned quickly that I HATED dealing with patients, but I really enjoyed working with the staff...
so I would sign up to work down in the supply areas (sterilizing stuff, carrying supplies up to the different floors, junk like that), and of course I enjoyed supplying the doctor's lounge with snacks because I could eat what I liked without anyone noticing.
I didn't mind dealing with the visitors, and I would be at the front desk signing people in and out and entertaining their kids (who weren't allowed to go up to the patient's rooms)...but it was harder to goof off when in the lobby....
As a volunteer job it wasn't bad. It always seemed to have a strange vibe, but was interesting...almost fascinating.
What I realized was that I am not a nurturing or caring person...with strangers. I care about my friends and family, but I'd never want to have look after strangers.
Many years later (I was in my 30s) a friend was dying of AIDS and I went to be with him. It was funny when I first arrived, I avoided the lobby completely because I knew what room he was in (I'd had a phone call), so I just went in a side door, found an elevator, and went straight up un-challenged. Most people in hospitals are busy and won't worry about an adult wandering around. I stayed five days with Bill, and it was kind of scary at night: you could hear the people in pain in the silence at night. I would shut Bill's door so he couldn't hear anyone down the hall, and I turned the neon lights off over his bed and instead turned on the bathroom light and left the door open... I didn't see why he should have a flickering bright light shining down on his face all night long. It was actually very nice staying there, because he would have brief times of clarity around dawn when he would wake briefly and we could talk...
When my Mother had a head injury in 1988 (I remember because I ended up attending my 20 year HS reunion while I was there...because the picnic was right across the street from her hospital) I went back to Boulder and ended up going every day to the hospital to help with her physical therapy and lunch (because she wasn't participating in those...but wouldn't be such a big baby in front of me). It was a weird time, she was really out of it for weeks, and we began to worry that she wasn't going to recover.
It was kind of humorous in a way...she didn't really know where she was, or why. She thought she was on a really bad cruise with really rude waitresses!
The lowest point was one day the doctor took her off of all her medications to just see how she was doing, I was very grateful to the nurse who stopped me in the hall and warned me before I entered her room: when I saw her she was literally climbing the walls in paranoid terror. Luckily she wasn't afraid of me, so I could soothe her, and close the door assuring her I wouldn't let anyone bad in to get at her. I was glad that the doctor came soon and let her get back on some medicine to deal with her fears.
And then one day I came in and was shocked and thrilled to find that she was 100%: she had woken up at dawn (what is it about dawn?) with all her memories flooding back. She got much better quickly after that.
I could see working in a hospital, something about the big buildings seem kind of worth exploring... but of course I still wouldn't want to deal with any patients (unless they were my own friends or family).
I enjoyed 'Ariel' a lot, partly because I felt it was kind of real..the way they could pull off their heist.
I don't know why I wanted to go into this...in a way it is related to my past posts about death, so I guess I'll tag it to go with those...
I'm reminded that the Sci-fi channel is rerunning Stephen King's horror story of the crazed scary hospital:
Kingdom Hospital is on a marathon tonight...if you care (he is too gross for me)
but all hospitals can be a little scary. Or at least weird and alien.
I had never really been around hospitals much until I worked all Summer in one when I was in Jr. High School I signed on to be a Candy Stripper (one of those helpful little girls in the pink & white stripped pinafores...)
I learned quickly that I HATED dealing with patients, but I really enjoyed working with the staff...
so I would sign up to work down in the supply areas (sterilizing stuff, carrying supplies up to the different floors, junk like that), and of course I enjoyed supplying the doctor's lounge with snacks because I could eat what I liked without anyone noticing.
I didn't mind dealing with the visitors, and I would be at the front desk signing people in and out and entertaining their kids (who weren't allowed to go up to the patient's rooms)...but it was harder to goof off when in the lobby....
As a volunteer job it wasn't bad. It always seemed to have a strange vibe, but was interesting...almost fascinating.
What I realized was that I am not a nurturing or caring person...with strangers. I care about my friends and family, but I'd never want to have look after strangers.
Many years later (I was in my 30s) a friend was dying of AIDS and I went to be with him. It was funny when I first arrived, I avoided the lobby completely because I knew what room he was in (I'd had a phone call), so I just went in a side door, found an elevator, and went straight up un-challenged. Most people in hospitals are busy and won't worry about an adult wandering around. I stayed five days with Bill, and it was kind of scary at night: you could hear the people in pain in the silence at night. I would shut Bill's door so he couldn't hear anyone down the hall, and I turned the neon lights off over his bed and instead turned on the bathroom light and left the door open... I didn't see why he should have a flickering bright light shining down on his face all night long. It was actually very nice staying there, because he would have brief times of clarity around dawn when he would wake briefly and we could talk...
When my Mother had a head injury in 1988 (I remember because I ended up attending my 20 year HS reunion while I was there...because the picnic was right across the street from her hospital) I went back to Boulder and ended up going every day to the hospital to help with her physical therapy and lunch (because she wasn't participating in those...but wouldn't be such a big baby in front of me). It was a weird time, she was really out of it for weeks, and we began to worry that she wasn't going to recover.
It was kind of humorous in a way...she didn't really know where she was, or why. She thought she was on a really bad cruise with really rude waitresses!
The lowest point was one day the doctor took her off of all her medications to just see how she was doing, I was very grateful to the nurse who stopped me in the hall and warned me before I entered her room: when I saw her she was literally climbing the walls in paranoid terror. Luckily she wasn't afraid of me, so I could soothe her, and close the door assuring her I wouldn't let anyone bad in to get at her. I was glad that the doctor came soon and let her get back on some medicine to deal with her fears.
And then one day I came in and was shocked and thrilled to find that she was 100%: she had woken up at dawn (what is it about dawn?) with all her memories flooding back. She got much better quickly after that.
I could see working in a hospital, something about the big buildings seem kind of worth exploring... but of course I still wouldn't want to deal with any patients (unless they were my own friends or family).
I enjoyed 'Ariel' a lot, partly because I felt it was kind of real..the way they could pull off their heist.
I don't know why I wanted to go into this...in a way it is related to my past posts about death, so I guess I'll tag it to go with those...